Body-Bridges and
Park-ing Places
II. Greenspace
III. Bridge
IV. Wall
Director: Jennifer Kayle
Music: Original compositions by students from the Center for New Music
Stairs: Mark Rheaume (composer), Luciana Hontila (violin), Donghee Han (viola), Adrian Gomez Hernandez (cello), Yi Wang (piano)
Bridge: Ace White (composer), Peter Grubisich (percussion), Jordan McFarland (percussion), Alex Waters (bass)
Wall: Trinton Prater (composer), Luciana Hontila (violin), Donghee Han (viola), Adrian Gomez Hernandez (cello), Alex Waters (bass)
Greenspace: Angelica Emrich (composer), Luciana Hontila (violin), Donghee Han (viola), Adrian Gomez Hernandez (cello)
Ramp: Maxwell Denney (composer)
Music Composition Advisor: Zack Stanton
Sound Engineer: James Edel
Costume Designer: Juliana Waechter
Videographer/Editor: Michael Landez
Co-Creating Performers: Tae Butler, Cearra Crosser, Hannah Hinkel, Mia Nagl, Gracie Schulz, Mady Sevareid, Lauren Short, Anna Snyder, Brittlyn Taylor, Maya Villanueva
These works were created in a First-Year Seminar with dance majors in their first semester of study. Directed by Associate Professor, Jennifer Kayle, these co-creating performers explored several sites on the UI campus, investigating and responding to the physical environment, logging their experiences in distinct places, and creating movement at the nexus of body and place, internal and external, the self, the landscape, and the built environment. Graduate student Michael Landez contributed to the project by filming and editing our experiments, and by assisting in the direction of the shots. Interim Director for the Center for New Music, Zack Stanton, gathered and directed students from the Center to create original music compositions. In other words, each moment in these short videos is the result of a large community of collaborators! Many thanks go to each contributing artist for helping to create these quick-studies.
Thanks to Michael Landez for sharing his time and talents with this project, and to Zack Stanton for organizing a collaboration with the Center for New Music.
Photos
Jennifer Kayle is a woman of a certain age whose “muscular presence” as a performer, (Dance Source Houston), should not be confused with mere appearance, which may or may not be “muscular” depending on the season. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally; of the 56 choreographies made over 15 years, a couple were seen by someone who wrote down words like: “provocative, tight, with wit and stage craft,” “serious chops,” (Vox Fringe), “distinct, affecting scenes,” (Hampshire Gazette), “memorable and shockingly poignant,” (City Revealed). Recently, she has presented at the Dumbo Dance Festival, Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center in Brooklyn, NY, at The American Dance Guild Festival at the Ailey Center, NYC, premiered a two-part work in progress at Joffrey Ballet Studios in collaboration with resident company “The Lovelies,” and presented a half-evening length work at the curated Bodies-in-Motion festival (MA) in January of 2020. Kayle regularly compares herself unfavorably to an extensive list of unique, interesting, and smart collaborators, and otherwise, uses her work to showcase very talented students at University of Iowa, where she is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies for the MFA program. Her projects often wonder about social change, usually with optimism and pessimism in a clash of wills. Kayle is certified in The Feldenkrais Method of somatic education, co-founder of Movement Intensive in Compositional Improvisation, and has co-written an article with Philosopher Ali Hasan on Ensemble Improvisation as a form of Collective Action. You can learn more or contact her at JenniferKayle.com.
Zack Stanton is a composer and conductor from Conway, Arkansas. He has written for orchestra, wind ensemble, choir, and chamber ensembles of various sizes, and his work has been increasingly performed throughout the United States, as well as Ireland and South Korea.
Zack has been awarded first prize in the International Horn Society Composition Contest (winner of Virtuoso Division for Trio for Horn, Viola, and Harp) and in the Sanibel-Captiva Trust Prize in Choral Composition (for Before You Kissed Me). His Concerto for Piano and Wind Ensemble received Honorable Mention in the ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Competition. Zack’s orchestral works have been performed by the Conway Symphony Orchestra, the University of Texas Symphony Orchestra, and the Austin Symphony Orchestra. Recent commissions have come from Courtney Miller (oboe), Benjamin Coelho (bassoon), Jesse Cook (trumpet), Anne-Marie Cherry (horn), Matthew Teodori (percussion), the University of Georgia, the Millikin University Percussion Ensemble, and line upon line percussion.
Active as a performer, Zack served as a pianist and conductor for the University of Texas New Music Ensemble and for four years acted as the Assistant Director of the group. Currently, he assists with the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa, where he is Lecturer of Music Theory and Composition.
Zack received his Doctor of Musical Arts in composition from the University of Texas at Austin. He is currently Lecturer of Composition and Theory at the University of Iowa. Prior to his appointment at the University of Iowa, Zack taught at Belmont University and the University of Texas at Austin.